ant

This thread will be worth digging up if we secure another solid mid table position next season.

Five seems to be the magic number at present, pending further outgoing transfers of course. Perhaps I've lost the plot but I'm genuinely excited for the forthcoming season.

It's testament to the influence of the matchday threads that they sprung to mind instantly after reading Koeman's tweet. On a semi-related note, I found an interesting article on Chile's coach Jorge Sampaoli, who has been credited with building on Marcelo Bielsa's tactical influence (Bielsa having also heavily influenced Pochettino). I believe Koeman has already tinkered with a dynamic 3-5-2/5-3-2 formation, so we could be seeing something similar in action come August. http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/2014-fifa-world-cup-jorge-sampaoli-chile-marcelo-bielsa/

Having actually filled the survey in now, I can only hope most of their suggestions don't come to pass. Visions of 32,000 people sat in silence, staring at their smartdevice for 90% of the match, watching replays and highlights rather than the live action and discussing the match with strangers online rather than the people next to them.

It's symptomatic of a wider societal plague; same sort of mentality as the people that would rather live a match or a gig through a viewfinder. Filming a set piece on an iPad, what the hell? Each to their own I guess but I'd rather form memories by actually experiencing an event. Admittedly day-to-day I'm pretty keen on Twitter, but on matchday my phone's used for a quick comment on the way back to the car, not for anything other than watching the bloody game. TL;DR - I'm sure there's demand for Wi-Fi, but not need.

The fluid Chilean 3-5-2/5-3-2 (complete with high tempo pressing) looked pretty tasty against Spain tonight and certainly asks questions of teams that like to hold onto the ball. It's a system that Koeman dabbled with towards the end of last season.

I've mentioned it before, but this is built-in functionality with Google Calendars: https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37098?hl=en Benefit of using their one is that it automatically updates if fixtures are moved and also populates the calendar entry with the score after the event. Be nice to see the Premier League trophy lifted on the final day, especially since we'll be inheriting it from City. Forget "AGUEROOOOOO!" - it'll be all about "OSVALDOOOOOO!"

I was in the Chilworth Arms' beer garden an hour ago when none other than Pochettino swanned in. Sacked already?

Aaron Martin was a local boy and a Southampton fan. Just seen he's at Yeovil now.

Proof will of course be in the pudding, but that's a promising interview. If everything he says is true we could be looking at a much smoother transition than looked likely in the wake of MP's departure. Good to know we have proper contingency plans and that the club's staff have been busying themselves while everyone externally has been having their little meltdowns. Thank goodness we don't have a fan on the board.

Haha. Even more remarkably I just realised I had Curtis Davies on at CB due to injuries.

Turns out that Champions League dream isn't so ridiculous after all. First group match, boom.

Had a bottle of that last night - quite a kick at 8.5%. Seem to be visiting Bitter Virtue every week of late. Gradually working through their entire collection of stouts and porters.

I'm still not entirely sure how, but I won the league in my first season with Saints. P38 W25 D10 L3 F94 A53 Leaked lots of goals (including a 6-3 loss at Chelsea) but generally scored more than enough (Lambert got 30 and golden boot!) Also JWP massively stepped up and is rapidly developing into my best attacking midfielder. Summer 2013 window IN: Michael Keane (loan) Simone Pepe (loan) January 2014 window IN: Danny Ings Will Hughes Tactics: 4-2-3-1, Attacking, Fluid, instructions to play possession football and high line 4-1-2-1-2, Standard (or Control), Balanced, instructions to play slightly more directly but still press (used the second formation when we were the underdog - less leaky but continued to score) Favoured lineup: Boruc Clyne - Fonte - Lovren - Shaw Wanyama - Schneiderlin Lallana - Ward-Prowse - Rodriguez Lambert The board was pretty receptive when it came to putting up funds for 2014-15 and I also got 25% of the fee from Oxlade-Chamberlain transferring to Liverpool. Hopefully won't have disrupted the balance too much as all I've really done is clear out some dead wood and bolster the defensive depth. Summer 2014 window IN: Asmir Begovic Eder Alvarez Balanta Kieran Gibbs (swap deal) Kyriakos Papadopoulos Curtis Davies Summer 2014 window OUT: Kelvin Davis Paulo Gazzaniga (swap deal) Cody Cropper Maya Yoshida Jordan Turnbull Danny Fox (pre-arranged) Jos Hooiveld Guly do Prado Lee Barnard Jonathan Forte Billy Sharp Sam Gallagher The Gazzaniga/Gibbs swap deal was my favourite bit of business. Arsenal came in with a bid of £550k for PG, so I countered asking for KG as well. Pretty surprised when they accepted and now have solid cover for Shaw. Having batted away Liverpool coming in for Lallana and Shaw, I let them have Gallagher for £5m-ish out of pity. Now just need to find a world class striker to lead the line as I fear RL is on his way out and Osvaldo hasn't impressed in pre-season against poor opposition. Most of the 'wonderkids' are already commanding silly fees so if anybody has any recommendations that'd be really helpful!

Woah, we'd best line up that Messi bid. Minted. £1m per mm of beard fluff.

Well if we get Koeman in, I'm sure he'd have some wisdom to impart - he was a penalty specialist.

I'd hope not - had a bottle of it last night and it was rank. Mind you I'm more into porters and stouts. Some mates cajoled me into signing up for Untappd - it's supposed to be a sort of beery social network but works well as a way of discovering new beers (via location search), seeing what friends are drinking or just keeping a log of your favourites. Decent mobile app too.

If, if, IF the Lambert transfer isn't the opening of the floodgates that many assumed it was, it puts a very different spin on recent matters.

A little tear in my eye watching that 'thanks and farewell' compilation on Youtube last night and another today when reading Rickie's letter. Truly comes across as a heartfelt outpouring from a humble, genuine guy. A Saints legend.

My open letter was pithier.

Believe me or don't, I have no reason to lie and am feeling pretty torn up about everything Saints-wise at the moment. Have it on decent authority that Dejan will be off to Spurs, to be finalised in the next couple of days

Pretty much the only sensible thing I've read all evening. Regardless of whether Cortese or 'dark forces' have had a hand in recent goings on, if NC could be bothered to read our fans' reactions he'd be ****ing himself.

Of course you can, Saint Charlie - but the wider point is that analysing everything in granular detail when armed with only a fraction of the facts becomes tedious very quickly. Akin to giving an answer to 10 decimal places when all through your maths the working out relied on approximations. The old counter to this is 'well, it wouldn't be much of a message board without speculation'. True to a point, but it's baffling that some let it get to the extent that they're bursting blood vessels over unknowns.

...Duplicate.

Alternatively: Stop spending 8 hours a day glued to Saints Web, Twitter, Sky Sports etc. etc. Turn off computer Spend some quality time with friends, family and loved ones Take the official announcements as they come, grieve as necessary Come back in August with the necessary ammunition to form pragmatic expectations for the new season More than one way to skin a Kat.